


If only I could show you

by oathkeptroxas



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Complicated Relationships, Friends With Benefits, Past Abuse, Past Drug Use, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7652497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oathkeptroxas/pseuds/oathkeptroxas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was fighting to accept that what happened wasn't entirely his fault, he wasn't to blame for Oliver's shortcomings. She was just running. She often wondered if she'd ever really stop.<br/>Terra/Speedy, post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If only I could show you

**Author's Note:**

> The doctors knew, prescribe me you  
> Below, below the amber sky
> 
> And the river always flows, so if you go, I will know  
> By the rain, my Charlemagne  
> And the river always flows tears of gold  
> Left me cold, do you feel the same, my Charlemagne?
> 
> Blossoms | Charlemagne.

The rocks beneath them were jagged, waves crashing violently against them and throwing up salty sprays. The horizon was set ablaze with red and orange hues that gave her hair a strawberry tint in the fading light. Her bare feet swayed back and forth in a pendulum rhythm; little anxious movements she was barely aware of as her toes curled against the coming chill. Her shaking fingers clenched tight around the cigarette. She brought it up to her chapped lips, swollen red from kissing.

With a hitching inhale, the smoke hit the back of her throat, flakes of ash fluttered down to land on her creamy thigh. The fingers of her free hand traced nonsensical patterns in the freckles of her skin, mapped out constellations that she knew by heart from all the nights spent laid out beneath the open sky. The sky was darkening still, and the night was silent save their labored breaths and the collision of the waves to the shore. Smoke breathed out and swirled between them, ash danced in the breeze. 

This was always the most difficult part, the figuring out what to say, the stilted moments when reality seeped back in and they knew nothing had changed. It was a complicated arrangement. They weren't really much to each other, despite the heated kisses and the pressing closer, like they could climb inside each others souls and stay. It wasn't a matter of caring, but rather a matter of belonging, an exercise in self indulgence where they both helped each other _pretend_ for a little while. Every time her fingers tugged his hair, every time his teeth grazed softly against the flutter of her pulse, everything was whittled down to nothing but physical sensation. No thoughts, no feelings, no ifs or buts or maybes. 

He was trying to find himself, trying to regain control. He was fighting to accept that what happened wasn't entirely his fault, he wasn't to blame for Oliver's shortcomings. She was just running. She often wondered if she'd ever really stop. 

Spots and track-marks were hidden within the smattering of freckles, but he knew they were there, she'd probably seen them too. He'd noticed the lines that marred her skin, raised slightly and silvery in the evening light, winding around her arms. He'd often wondered at their origin, longed to trace them with a reverent fingertip to see if they were sensitive like scars often are, but that action seemed far too intimate, too personal. He liked her, against his better judgement. But he wasn't naive enough to believe that anything could possibly work out, not with the way things were.

His fingertips tingled with the sense memory of clutching her narrow hips, the ends of their noses brushed, teeth tugging softly at lips. His eyes zoned in on that one wayward freckle, alone and dead center of her bottom lip. He always found himself pulling away from a deep, desperate kiss to caress that little mark with the pad of his thumb. 

Her feelings towards him fluctuated, altered from day to day. She wondered if perhaps this was simply a control thing, a grasping of something she'd spent her whole life without. This was what she wanted, on her terms, she sought him out when she needed it. Maybe she was just relieved, grateful. Maybe she was just relishing in welcome touches for a change. The universe owed her at least that much, didn't it? 

But in the quiet moments after, like right now on the rooftop, looking out towards the setting sun, she felt guilty. Was she using him? Was this all about her own comfort and gratification? Did her uncertain feelings towards him somehow make her bad, dirty? Did he want this, or was he only giving her what she wanted? She wished more than anything she knew how to navigate this. She closed her eyes and she saw Slade, his hands like restraints when they touched her, his eyes hard like steel. His voice was raspy and low like the devil, like the hiss of a snake as he kept telling her that this was what she'd wanted, she'd brought this on herself. She was working so hard on believing that wasn't true. She knew now, she knew that he'd lied, he'd taunted and molded and used. But that scared little girl who'd blindly trusted, had once believed everything he'd said.

He thought back to what had brought him here, to Titans East, to this tower, to her. Sometimes he would swear he could still feel the phantom sting on the curve of his jaw where Oliver's fist had collided. He could remember the all-consuming nausea, the cramps, the dripping sweat on his brow of the come-down. He remembered the crunch of the crushed syringe under booted feet and the snapped needle on the plush rug. He remembered the harsh snaps and taunts he'd thrown Dinah's way, his blatant dismissal of her help until he'd sobbed shamefully in her arms. Why did everybody leave him? Was he really such a burden? Such a horrid mistake on every life he touched?

Without a word, without making the conscious decision to move, they were colliding again, warm skin on warm skin. Flat against the concrete of the rooftop, lips grazed scars and freckles alike. Hands grasped and caressed and breaths hitched. Like a vicious cycle, they'd lose themselves in each other for a momentary reprieve, then say very little to each other in the wake of their discretion. There was no moving forward like this. But when they lay there for blissful seconds afterwards, he pressed a butterfly kiss to her temple, and she smiled a little lazily, and everything felt a little more okay than usual.


End file.
